


Partners

by katwithallergies



Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s03e13 Knockdown, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-05 00:36:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katwithallergies/pseuds/katwithallergies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Espo and Ryan are totally kidding themselves about the platonic nature of their bonding rituals.  Going from <i>partners</i> to just partners was hell, but now Kev wants to take it all back.<br/>"I've been thinking about breaking our rules, Javi."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Partners

**Author's Note:**

> "When I'm not here do you guys braid each others' hair and debate who's the hottest Jonas brother?" - Beckett

"Why don't you let your hair grow out? Just a little bit."  Ryan scrubbed his hands over Esposito's buzzed hair and dug his fingers in at the temples.  
  
Esposito leaned his head over onto Ryan's thigh so he could look at him.  "You want me to?"  
  
"Just enough so I can get my fingers into it."  
  
"I think people take me more seriously with it cut short."  He angled his head to get Ryan's hands back to just the right spot.  
  
"Yeah, but I always thought it looked nice with a little length."  He raked his nails over Esposito's hair and down to the base of his neck, rubbing his thumbs into the knots above his spine.  "All right, enough. Switch."  
  
With a groan of protest Esposito levered himself off the floor, leaning on Ryan's rickety coffee table, and dropped onto the couch.  Ryan slid down to the floor and seated himself between Esposito's knees, flopping his head back expectantly onto the edge of the cushions.   
  
"Man on the couch has control of the TV."  Esposito dug the remote out from between the cushions.  "We aren't watching this sissy shit anymore."  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"Uh-uh." Esposito found a suitable shoot 'em up and let the remote drop to the couch, burying his fingers in Ryan's hair and breaking loose the clumps of dried hair gel.  
  
"Well, you didn't have to call it sissy," Ryan said halfheartedly, eyes closed.  "I happen to like that show."  
  
Esposito worked his hands down the sides of Ryan's head to the ridges just behind his ears. "To be honest, it's growing on me, too.  But if you ever tell anyone I said so, I will never, ever give you head rubs again."  
  
"Deal." Ryan's face relaxed into smooth, unlined bliss and his lips parted slightly, exhales escaping with tiny sighs.  Esposito watched him for several seconds too long before forcing himself to look back at the TV.  
  
\---  
  
Onscreen a cowboy got shot and flew backwards through a window, spraying glass shards everywhere; Esposito sighed internally, because he'd shot enough people to know that that wasn't how it worked.  He glanced down at Ryan, who'd been so quiet he'd thought he was asleep, and found clear blue eyes staring up at him openly, a slight frown set on his mouth.  
  
"What's the matter?" Esposito asked.  
  
"Wha--? Oh, nothing." Ryan rearranged his frown into a blank expressions.  His eyes roamed the room: the bookcase loaded with paperbacks (including all of Castle's books), the spider webs in the corner, the empty beer bottles and take out containers on the bar.  "So, uh, how're things with you and Lanie?" He said with forced casualness that didn't fool Esposito for a second.  
  
"Things are good. You know, it's nice to have someone." An agonized shout broke the silence and another cowboy flew out of a second story hay loft.  "How're things with Jenny?"  
  
"Oh, you know," Ryan trailed off, eyes unfocused and aimed at a blank patch of ceiling.  "I've been thinking," he swallowed audibly and Esposito watched his adam's apple bob.  He stilled his hands and waited.  "I've been thinking about breaking our rules, Javi."  
  
"Kev, no." He felt the muscles at the back of Ryan's neck clench tight as steel cables and reflexively started working them over with his hands.  Damn traitorous hands.  "We tried it; you remember why we have rules in the first place?  We fought all the time. You felt powerless and I felt lonely and even when we had sex it was a passive-aggressive nightmare.  We got into it at your grandmother's funeral and your dad dragged us out by our ears and told us to get out heads out of our asses. Remember? We fought tooth and nail to salvage a friendship out of that wreck.  We make better partners than _partners._ "   
  
Ryan was staring at him again, not flinching away, eyes begging to be heard.  "We're different people than we were four years ago, Javi.  All the things we've been through, all this stuff that's happened to us, it's changed us."  His voice faltered and his eyes roamed the corners of the room again, looking for something secure to land on.  "I'm a different man today than I was two weeks ago, after what happened in that warehouse," he said softly.  "And I think you are, too."  
  
"What about Jenny?" Esposito asked, because she was a real person and she had feelings, too.  "You proposed to her." He'd met her; she was nice, and she really seemed to love him.  Besides, she might be his only shot at not making a part two out of fucking things up with Ryan.  
  
"That's when I realized that I couldn't do this anymore.  It's like, we'd had a good thing going," Ryan said the words quickly and Esposito could clearly picture him rehearsing them under his breath, waiting for this moment. "I was fine just faking along, taking whatever I could get from you and telling myself it was best to move on; settling into a life pretending that Jenny was the one I wanted to be with. But getting engaged, I finally crossed that invisible line where reality just slapped me in the face.  I don't want to get married, Javi. I don't want to lock away the possibility that we might ever be together again.  And it's not enough to be just your friend, or just your partner, even with all the touching and the feelings and the late night phone calls.  We might _actually_ die tomorrow, Javi.  And I can't say 'I do' and sentence myself to a life with 'good enough.'"  
  
"But you haven't told her yet, right? I mean, if I say no, everything will be okay?" Esposito said a little desperately.  
  
Ryan snorted and locked eyes with him.  "I think the fact that I'm sitting here talking about her like she's of no consequence is pretty indicative of the state of our relationship, bro. It's over with Jenny, no matter what happen with us." He lowered his eyes to the TV and mumbled, "She just doesn't know it yet."  
  
They lapsed into thick silence and Esposito combed his fingers through Ryan's hair repetitively, more for his own comfort than Ryan's.  He stared at the TV without seeing it.  
  
"What about Lanie?" Ryan challenged.  
  
"It's casual," Esposito said.  Ryan cocked one upside down eyebrow like he didn't believe him.  "She knew my heart was never up for grabs.  I didn't have to tell her.  She just knew."  
  
"You can't tell me you never thought about it? About us getting back together."  
  
Esposito felt the familiar weight of guilt settling in his chest and remembered a thousand nights, cursing himself for being so stupid.  "It seemed best not to let myself think about it; I don't deserve a second chance."  
  
One of Ryan's hands reached up and settled over Esposito's, stilling it.  His hair had fallen into loose waves from all the brushing and it framed his face with soft lines.  "You're not the only one who fucked it up the first time, Javi.  I wasn't an easy person to be in a relationship with, I know."  
  
"I hurt you," Esposito said, looking away. He could see Ryan shifting around onto his knees to face him; felt their hands still clasped firmly together. "Worse than you hurt me."  
  
"I don't think that's true at all," Ryan said sadly, stroking his free hand over Esposito's frown.  "I'd like to show you exactly what I think of that."  Both his hands fell onto Esposito's face, framing his jaw and forcing him to look at Ryan.  "Javi?"  
  
He didn't answer, instead he leaned down toward Ryan's mouth.  Something in him was kicking and fighting every inch of the way until he finally stopped, three-quarters of the way between them.  Ryan stroked his thumbs over Esposito's cheek bones and tilted their foreheads together, understanding intuitively that Esposito couldn't make the first move by himself, because four and a half years of partnership grants that gift to two people.  He leaned in the rest of the way slowly, angling their faces together and giving Esposito plenty of time to pull back, but he didn't need to.  Their lips came together with a soft brush and Esposito remembered all in a flash what kissing Ryan was like, just like it had been four hours and not four years that passed.  He ran his hands up Ryan's back to his shoulders and pulled him in, deepening the kiss.  Ryan made an involuntary sound, somewhere between a sigh and a moan and Esposito remembered that, too.  
  
Ryan planted one hand in the middle of Esposito's chest and pushed him back into the couch while he climbed off the floor and straddled his lap.  His thighs felt more muscular that Esposito remembered, and when he leaned over him and pushed his tongue into Esposito's mouth, sure and fast, he was definitely more confident that he remembered.  Ryan got his hands under Esposito's t-shirt and pushed it up, lightly running his palms all over his chest and stroking the fine hair that grew just on his sternum.   
  
Ryan groaned and broke the kiss, panting, "If this doesn't work out, I'm going to have to make myself forget all over again what your skin feels like."  He tucked his fingers into the grooves between Esposito's ribs and slid them around to his back.  "I don't know if I can do that again. Once nearly killed me."  
  
"I won't fuck it up this time, I swear," Esposito said fervently and licked the hollow of Ryan's throat and down one protruding collar bone.  Ryan groaned and ducked his face down to Esposito's, nose to nose.  
  
"You weren't the only one who fucked it up last time," he pulled Esposito's lower lip between his teeth, then leaned in for a quick, dirty kiss.  "I was a manipulative little bitch."  He drug his lips to the side, rubbing them over Esposito's two-day stubble, and shivered. "Ninety-nine percent of a relationship with you is not enough, Jav." He ground one hand unsubtly over Esposito's hard dick through his jeans.  "I want it all."


End file.
